Ex-Tracy man jailed for child porn

Tuesday

Dec 4, 2012 at 12:01 AM

SACRAMENTO - Christopher J. Tonkin, 38, of Brentwood, formerly of Tracy, was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge William Shubb to five years in prison, to be followed by 10 years of supervised release, for the receipt and sharing of child pornography, according to U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner.

The Record

SACRAMENTO - Christopher J. Tonkin, 38, of Brentwood, formerly of Tracy, was sentenced Monday by U.S. District Judge William Shubb to five years in prison, to be followed by 10 years of supervised release, for the receipt and sharing of child pornography, according to U.S. Attorney Benjamin Wagner.

According to court documents, between March 24, 2008, and Feb. 11, 2011, Tonkin received visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Among the files were images and movies with file names that described sex with 12- and 13-year-old boys.

On Feb. 16, 2011, agents executed a search warrant at Tonkin's house. They found an external hard drive that was connected to a desktop computer that Tonkin had used to store images of child pornography downloaded through a file-sharing network.

A forensic examination of the external hard drive found that it contained more than 50,000 images and more than 5,000 videos of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

As part of the file-sharing network, Tonkin also made his collection of images available to other collectors to upload in exchange for their images and videos, the documents say.

The case was the product of an investigation by the California Department of Justice and the Sacramento Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.